1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments of the present application relate to a sensor system.
2. Background Art
Over the last several years manufactures of portable devices, such as tablet PCs, hand-held games, PDAs and cellular phones, have incorporated touch sensitive surfaces, or touchscreens, as the primary interface between the portable device and the user. The inclusion of touch screen devices continues to increase primarily as a result of the amount of software applications being developed and made available to purchasers of these portable devices.
For example, Apple and Google have profited from increasing sales of their portable devices as a direct result of the increasing number of software applications available on each company's application software stores, or “app stores.” Non-limiting examples of software applications currently available on each company's app store include interactive maps, music, pictures, videos, games or business tools. Once acquired and downloaded to a portable device, the purchaser may run and interact with the software application using the portable device's touch screen.
The increasing number of software app's available to a purchaser is directly correlated with the touch screens ability to have “soft” controls located anywhere upon the touch screen. Being able to change the functionality, placement and display of these “soft” controls allows for an almost infinite number of software applications to be developed and run on the portable device. For example, one software app may design “soft” controls that display a visual keyboard that the operator uses to enter information into the portable device. Alternatively, another software app may design “soft” controls that allow an operator the capability of navigating the Internet.
Touch screens also allow for the design of software apps that allow interacting with the portable device using finger gestures such as a “swipe” or “pinch.” Such gestures allow the software app to be designed with intuitive and easy controls that may not have been possible with physical controls alone. For example, the software application may be designed to allow the operator the capability of “enlarging” or “shrinking” a picture displayed on the touch screen using simple finger swipes.
Although current touch screen technology provides X, Y coordinate location data, this technology is not able to adequately determine the amount of force (e.g., pressure) that is exerted on the touch screen by an operator without complicated mechanical systems.